Yanukovich presses Ukraine rival to concede defeat

The official results signaled a comeback for the rough-hewn Yanukovich, 59, tagged as Moscow's stooge five years ago when street protests led by Tymoshenko overturned results that initially gave him victory in an election tainted by fraud.

A Yanukovich victory could see the country of 46 million people shift back toward former Soviet master Russia after five years of infighting and a sliding economy turned the euphoria of the 2004 Orange Revolution into disillusionment.

Both candidates pledged integration with Europe while improving ties with Moscow, but Tymoshenko is seen as more pro-Western. Yanukovich is unlikely to pursue membership of NATO, an 'Orange' goal that infuriated neighboring Russia.

Yanukovich, a beefy ex-mechanic who was mauled by the sharp-tongued Tymoshenko during a bitter campaign, urged his 49-year-old rival on Sunday night to resign as prime minister.

An aide, Borys Kolesnikov, answering reporters' question on Monday, said there were no back-stage contacts with Tymoshenko's camp to do a deal on a future alliance.

"It is impossible. There can be no coalition with BYuT (the Tymoshenko bloc in parliament)," said Kolesnikov.

If the voting pattern is unchanged, Yanukovich would be the first president since independence in 1991 to receive less than 50 percent of the vote, although elections in the 1990s were not always judged free and fair.

Tymoshenko was the co-architect of the 2004 revolution with pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, but their relationship quickly soured.

The fiery former gas tycoon late on Sunday urged her team to "fight for every result, every document, every vote," though she backed away from a threat to call people out on to the streets in a repeat of the 2004 protests.

She was scheduled to hold a news conference in the middle of Monday. But she put it back until after international monitors, headed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, had handed down their verdict on the election.

A protracted dispute over the result would further delay Ukraine's chances of repaying more than US$100 billion of foreign debt and nursing its sickly economy back to health after a 15 percent collapse last year.

In Russia, the source of the gas which flows through Ukraine's pipeline network to the West, the election was closely watched but state-controlled media avoided taking sides.

Ukraine's US$120 billion economy has been battered by a decline in the value of vital steel and chemicals exports that has hammered the hryvnia currency, slashed budget revenues and undermined the domestic banking system.

Regardless of the outcome, political squabbling was set to continue, reflecting the country's broader divisions. Ukraine is divided almost equally between a Russian-leaning east and south and a Western-friendly center and west.

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